How U.S. Academics
Are Riling Argentina

BUENOS AIRES -- There is more than just $130 billion in government debt riding on whether Argentina averts financial collapse. There is also a dinner.

That is what two U.S. economics professors wagered earlier this year in a bet on when the South American nation would go into default. "I said summer, he said winter," recalls Charles Calomiris of Columbia University, on his contest with Carnegie Mellon University's Adam...